In Gotham City, Batman investigates an attack on a Powers
Industries laboratory. A band of ninja
and four green monsters apparently stole an experimental generator. It’s the fourth attack/theft on a major
research facility since the abduction of Dr. Naveen Khan, a famous theoretical physicist. Hearing the testimony from one of the lab
technicians, Batman decides to investigate further.

Meanwhile, the "four green monsters" order a pizza and
sneak it into the sewers after the delivery guy sets it on the ground.

Down in the Batcave, Alfred is worried that with the
anniversary of his parents’ death approaching, Bruce Wayne AKA Batman (spoiler
alert) will be going into one of his “moods” again. Indeed, Bruce is working on the Intimidator,
a high tech suit of battle armor and ignoring any pleas to summon the rest of
the Batfamily back to Gotham for support.

Changing the subject, Bruce tells Alfred that the
injuries inflicted on the lab technicians are consistent with injuries from
ninjutsu fighting styles. Alfred
suggests that if ninja are involved, then perhaps it is an attack from Ra’s Al
Ghul and the League of Assassins. Bruce
dismisses the idea, as it just isn’t the League’s style to use only one martial
arts technique.

Donning his costume, Batman heads to the Wayne
Enterprises R&D facility in the Batmobile, asking Alfred to call the GCPD
and decline their offer of police protection for the building. He’s certain the ninja clan will strike there
next and doesn’t want the police interfering.

Down in the sewers, Killer Croc is following a GPS signal following the Batmobile. Croc
and his gang know that Batman is going to investigate Wayne Enterprises and
they’ve no interest in stealing anything from that place. Rather, Croc wants to strip the Batmobile for
parts, as its high tech doodads would go for millions on the black market.

Along the way, they stumble across a sewer lair that
looks like a teenage hangout. Croc
orders his men to find and kill the occupants before they can squeal to the
cops. Those occupants are, of course, the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and they beat the hell out of the thugs and
Croc. Donatello ponders how different
this dimension is from their home universe and wonders how they’ll ever get
back. Raphael insists that the only way
they’re going to get home is to track down the Foot Clan and not let them get
away again. Leonardo suggests they keep
their cool and continue searching, a strategy which Master Splinter agrees with. Michelangelo, however, is upset that Croc
destroyed his video games.

At the same time, Batman catches the Foot Clan red-handed
as they try to steal a signal amplifier from Wayne Enterprises. Batman takes all the ninja down and
interrogates the last one standing. The
Foot Soldier tells him that they are the Foot Clan and they only want a means
to get home. Batman asks about the four
metahumans that have been seen with them, but the Foot Soldier only gets out the
word “turtles” before he is killed by shuriken.

Batman looks up to see the Shredder staring down at him
from the catwalk. The Shredder warns
Batman to stay out of their way then throws a smoke bomb. When it clears, all the Foot Soldiers and the
Shredder are gone.

Outside, the Turtles emerge from a manhole and stumble
upon the Batmobile. Donnie is entranced
by the vehicle, but Michelangelo warns him that it may be taken. Batman swoops down from the rooftops and
sees the "turtles" the Foot Soldier was talking about…

Now anyway, can I say that this surprised the Hell out of
me when it was announced? I mean, yeah,
because really. Batman meeting the Ninja
Turtles? That came out of left
field. Even the Ghostbusters crossover
wasn’t quite so shocking since IDW held both licenses so it made a little bit
of sense. But BATMAN? Not in a million years.

The Turtles have crossed over with a LOT of different
franchises and licenses over the years, even before they achieved major media
popularity in 1987. But this is easily
their most mainstream crossover ever. I
mean, Usagi Yojimbo and Cerebus are big deals in the world of indie comics, the Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa had their own Saturday morning cartoon, and
the Ghostbusters are major motion picture stars… but Batman is BATMAN. That’s a big fuckin’ deal.

So to see the Turtles meeting Batman, outside of those weird unsanctioned Russian comics that we should probably forget about, is a
bewildering treat. Like Fanfiction.net
and DeviantArt just sprang to life and started charging $3.99 a month.

My love of TMNT is no secret, but I’m also a relatively
enthusiastic Batman fan. I’ve written
articles about Batman over at AIPT (including a couple trade paperback reading orders of my best estimation) and I’ve read countless pages of comics. The Dark Knight duels with Swamp Thing for
the spot as my favorite DC Comics character, and probably edges a lead since I’ve
read ten times as many Batman books as I have Swamp Thing (if only because DC hasn’t
reprinted most of Swampy’s library).

So just like TMNT/Ghostbusters, Batman/TMNT is a
crossover that hits me right in the wheelhouse.
Its two great tastes and so far they taste pretty great together.

My knowledge of more recent Batman comics is a little
behind; I stopped at “Death of the Family” and haven’t gotten into “Zero Year”
yet. I also haven’t read any recent Bat
titles that aren’t from the Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo run. This whole New 52 business is off-putting to
me, sorry (though I enjoyed the “Court of Owls” arc).

So with that in mind, I’ve no prior experience with
Tynion or Williams, though I understand more dedicated readers of DC’s
contemporary output are familiar with them.
As a first impression, however, I’m rapidly becoming fond of them both.

Tynion’s Turtles get less exposure in this first issue
than Batman does, but the title is “Batman/TMNT” with the Dark Knight coming
first. So the impression I got is this
is going to be from Batman’s POV primarily, which works with him being “The
World’s Greatest Detective” and having to piece the plot together for the
reader. If it was the TMNT’s POV first,
then we’d already know everything in the first few pages because they’re the
ones invading Gotham and trying to find a way home.

But from what I can tell, he obviously has their
attitudes down. Maybe he overplays their
clichés a bit; Donnie loses focus during the fight with Croc to prattle
ponderous exposition and Mikey won’t stop whining about his My Little Pony
spoof video game. But to be fair,
Batman gets equally Flanderized, with Alfred going on about how his parents were
killed in Crime Alley and how he’s become a dark, brooding avenger of the
night, etc.

Oddly, it was Tynion’s Killer Croc that I liked the
most. I really didn’t dig what had been
happening to Croc around the time of “Hush”, where Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee had
turned him into a mindless, snarling monster.
That sort of “characterization” is horrendously limited and a major
regression from the competent mobster he was in the ‘80s.

So it’s good to see him get his faculties back, with a
scheme that was actually sort of inspired in how relatively mundane it
was. And he even lets his thugs talk
back to him (to an extent) without going all “RAR GONNA EAT YOU!” because he isn’t
a braindead monster. Sorry to go off on
a Killer Croc-related tangent, but I like to see him written with two brain
cells.

Williams, well, every time I was about to type something
regarding his art, I wasn’t sure if it was his doing or the work of the
colorist, Colwell. The two look superb
together and there are these little nuances in their techniques that make this
comic stand out visually. The characters
all have these white outlines around them that on the surface kinda makes their
figures look “pasted” onto the pages, but also keeps them from getting lost in
the backgrounds. Williams doesn’t skimp
on any of the environmental details, so it would be easy for the characters to
get confused with their surroundings without those outlines.

IDW editor Bobby Curnow said that this miniseries is only
“inspired by” the IDW Turtles and not a part of that universe, and you can see
it in the character designs. The
Turtles, Splinter and especially Shredder are all drawn with their IDW models
(the Turtles have Santolouco’s unique bandana shapes, Shredder has the scarf, etc.). From a narrative standpoint, I’m not sure why
this comic isn’t part of IDW canon since it seems rather nonintrusive to the
IDW universe so far, but things could change.
Likely, it’s more a matter of licensing and reprint rights; IDW would
have to pay DC every time they wanted to reprint this story so it’s just easier to say it “doesn’t count”. Whether it “counts”
or not, however, should be immaterial as to whether it’s “good” or not. And it’s pretty good so far.

Other than that, there isn’t too much else to say about
this opening chapter. I’m sure Batman
and the Turtles will fight due to this misunderstanding, but circumstances will
cause them to eventually work together in the end and they’ll come to
terms. These sorts of crossovers follow
a formula, but really, if Batman and the Turtles DIDN’T fight, readers would be
pissed. And if Batman and the Turtles
DIDN’T team up, readers would also be pissed.
It’s a catch 22 and we all sort of give crossovers some slack for it.

Grade: B (as in, “But maybe this will lead to Rocksteady making a TMNT game in the vein of the Arkham series. Because I’d just be amused by the prospect of
ROCKSTEADY making Ninja Turtle games, if nothing else”.)

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Its hard to believe it took 30 years for TMNT and Batman to have a crossover. IDW and DC have been in bed together for a while now, there's the Green Lantern/Star Trek crossover, as well as a Legion of Superheroes crossover with IDW comics. IDW also reprints some old 60's Batman era comics as well as other DC properties like old Looney Tunes or Popeye comics, so they've worked together in the past.

I'm really glad this happened. Batman and TMNT crossing over was always one of those things everyone wanted to happened sooner or later, and I guess now is the right time.

Probably the next dream crossover is with the X-men, since they're both "mutants" and we can have the obvious fights/similarities between Raphael and Wolverine, as well as Leonardo and Cyclops. Hopefully Marvel and IDW strike up a deal next.

The turtles in this definitely remind me more of their current cartoon counterparts than the regular IDW version.

When the boys inevitably fight Bats, I hope they are actually able to hold their own against him or even defeat him. Getting a bit tired of the turtles getting their asses kicked then having Splinter show up to dominate their opponent.